


Collapse

by AuthorLoremIpsum



Series: Lodger Stories [7]
Category: The Glass Scientists (Webcomic)
Genre: Cave in, Claustrophobia, M/M, Near Death Experience, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorLoremIpsum/pseuds/AuthorLoremIpsum
Summary: There are two places where it’s most common to suffocate as the result of an accident, underwater, and underground. Unfortunately, Mr. Mosely and Mr. Helsby are far too familiar with this.It’s funny the things a lack of oxygen will make you say.
Relationships: Dr. Ranjit Helsby/Mr. Mosley
Series: Lodger Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/839586
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Part 1 - Cave In

“Well  _ I’m _ not going down to get him,” the maid insisted, stepping back from the heavy wooden door that locked off Mosley’s underground tunnels. “There’s, mud! And dust and god knows what else down there!”

The other servant, a more sensible man, huffed and gestured to the tray of food they’d been ordered to bring. “Well  _ someone _ has to take the food to him or he’ll starve!”

Mr. Helsby, ever the eavesdropper, leaned around the corner to watch the two staff members bicker away. The food on the tray must be getting cold by now, and if Mr. Mosley was waiting below, surely he’d gotten hungry and was starting up on his own. Though, if nothing else, this would be an excellent excuse to take a look in those dangerous tunnels that Ethan Mosley kept locked tighter than a bank vault.

So, tightening his belt and tucking his trousers into his boots, he strolled on over and took the tray. “Well if the two of you won’t make up your minds, perhaps I might be of some service? Surely they need your help in the kitchen.”

The two servants shared a confused look but gladly let him walk into the dark space that was the entrance to the underground on his own.

Gas lamps ran the length of the tunnel, glowing softly in the dim light, just enough to see the stairs and the harshly carved walls by. It had taken almost a month for Mosely to dig out this upper area, most of the dirt was then relocated to Archer and Bird’s lab as free experimental London soil. When he reached rock, the Society had a harder time getting rid of the stuff as he dug it out by the gross with his steam powered drill device.

This was the first time Helsby had ever been down here.

Not that he was averse to tight spaces and low altitudes, he simply preferred it when he had the opportunity to swim for the surface and far lower chances of being crushed alive under tonnes of rock. And yet, here he was, marching down to find Mosley among his tunnels, curiosity having gnawed so hard at his gut that there was nowhere left for it to go but into this underground maze.

To his surprise, as Helsby reached the bottom of the stairs, he came out upon a tall and cylindrical room with walls that reminded him of what he assumed the interior of a beehive looked like. A long spiraling slope circled the room, ever curling inward, with tunnels branching off at what was probably seventy degree increments, likely going off winding into the earth like groundhog or badger burrows. In the center of the tall room, which was perhaps thirty or forty meters tall, stood a wooden construction of ropes and pulleys with a bridge that ran from this wooden tower to the doorway Helsby had just come from.

Here it was dark, only the light from the staircase illuminating the upper rings of the chamber, and below only a few electric lanterns glowed upon a tabletop where the hunched form of Mosley was at work on something. From up here, Helsby could see the occasional glint of tools.

Mosley was a curious one.

He hid his face, he hid his work, he hid his history and his studies under coded notes and journals. Anything that the Society knew about him was what he’d either told them when they convinced him to open up or what they’d deduced from things he did. Which, still, wasn’t much. Helsby couldn’t help but wonder what the Mr. Sherlock Holmes from the stories in the Strand would have to say about their strange accomplice.

But he wasn’t here to ponder, he was on a mission!

Helsby cleared his throat and called out: “HALLOA!!!!”

His voice echoed in the chamber and he saw Mosley startle down below, causing a can of tools to tumble from the wooden table where they sat. He spun and looked up, “Who goes there!?”

“Why it’s simply me, old chap!” Helsby laughed. “I’ve brought you lunch, as our dear staff is too frightened to climb down to see you! You did order the uh-” he peeked under the lid- “Breads and jams, yes? Or perhaps this belongs to someone else!”

“Confound it Helsby! You nearly scared me out of my wits!” Mosley moved towards the tall wooden structure, “Come into the elevator, it’ll bring you down quicker.”

Hesitant, Helsby moved forward and stepped inside. “Are you quite sure this thing is safe? I’d feel much better were it made of, perhaps, steel?” He made a yelp of surprise as it began to descend, an electric light blinking on over his head.

He gripped the railing support of the elevator car as it slowly, slowly sunk into the room. It landed with a gentle thud in the dust and Mosley came forward to take the tray of food, holding his hands out expectantly. Helsby, of course, passed it to him. “Uh, interesting space you’ve got down here. Aren’t you worried about collapse?”

“Certainly not,” he hummed absently, turning away and opening the tray of food. “This cavern was here before London was built on top of it, these tunnels are too small and short, merely between caves that already exist.”

“You mean to say London is full of caves beneath it?” Helsby asked in surprise, following him out of the elevator. 

“The whole world is full of caves. And, while I appreciate your company, Ranjit, I’d prefer to eat alone.” Mosley still had his back turned to Helsby as he set the food down among his notes; not one to turn away from fresh information, Helsby walked over and leaned to the side to take a peek, tilting his head not unlike an owl.

Mosley glared at him gently behind his goggles, “Ranjit, please, you’re in my space.”

“My apologies, Ethan, I simply am fascinated by your work, as you hardly ever talk about it,” he said nonchalantly, stepping away to investigate another table top. He saw lights glimmering in the nearest tunnel, presumably where his associate had been working. Behind him, Mosley sighed and the shuffling of cloth suggested he was taking off his mask to eat.

Helsby didn’t turn back to look, despite how interested he was, and continued to browse, or rather snoop, through this underground camp that Mosley had set up. While he was oh so tempted to turn around and look at what Mosley would be hiding under that grey scarf of his, he knew well that was not a line to cross if one was trying to get information they wanted. People wore clothes to hide themselves for a reason, and even though his curiosity was gnawing, Helsby was not about to cross that line with someone he both respected and cared about.

As an associate, that is.

He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak again when a distant explosion made the ground beneath them shake, dust raining down from above. So he laughed, “Ha! There goes Luckett, at it again. Do you suppose he’s finally cracked something?”

Mosley irritably dusted dirt from his bread, “Perhaps.”

Both men jumped when the large wooden elevator let out an ominous creak, followed by the sound of groaning metal and splintering. Before Helsby could react, Mosley gripped him by the back of the coat and dragged him towards the cave with the lights inside. He stumbled, quickly recovering his balance as they ran for the opening, the elevator swaying unsteadily as the aftershocks of the explosion far away caused it to shake.

They watched with bated breath as it swayed dangerously and, tilting towards them, began to fall.

Mosley yanked up his scarf and dragged Helsby towards the back of the cave as the giant wooden structure crashed down behind them, sending a shockwave of dust and wooden splinters. The impact threw both of them forward into the dust and knocked the lights dark, Helsby wheezed as the wind was knocked out of him.

With a groan, he lifted himself to his knees, feeling around in the darkness for his glasses, which had gone flying from his face in the impact. He almost shouted when a hand grasped his wrist, pressing his glasses into his palm. “Easy now Ranjit, we’re safe.”

“We’re alive!” he answered with delight, slipping his glasses on. “Only problem, we can’t see a damned thing in this darkness.”

“You may not be able to, but I’m quite good at seeing with only the most minute of light,” Mosley’s voice said in the darkness. Helsby heard him moving around, heard a soft creak and watched, shocked, as the glowing light from one of Mosley’s electric lanterns illuminated in the miner’s hands. The edges of Mosley’s scarf bunched up as he smiled a bit, “There we go, that’s better, isn’t it?”

Helsby blinked once, and found himself staring.

This was Mosley in his natural element, not the blinding light of the world above, but the dim darkness of the earth lit by the soft yellow glow of a lamp and framed with the deep browns and blue shadows, his goggles glittering almost like the eyes of a strange insect, covered in dust and earth.

“Er, Ranjit? Did you hit your head?” he asked with a frown, breaking the reverie.

Helsby shook his head, shoving the thoughts of beauty and darkness into the back of his mind where they rightfully belonged. “No! I certainly did not! I was merely dazzled by the light. I understand now why you wear those goggles above ground, it must be downright blinding!”

Mosley chuckled, shaking his head as he stood. He had to stoop slightly, as in the backmost area of this tunnel it was only a meter or two tall, shorter than the mouth of the cave. He walked towards the end, now filled with rocks and debris, broken wood that stuck out at dangerous spikes and bent, twisted metal. He lifted the lantern, examining the wreckage thoroughly, and Helsby saw him wilt.   
“Well?” Helsby asked, standing and walking over.

“It’s sealed tight,” Mosley answered numbly, lowering the lantern. “We’ve no tools to move it, and we’re sealed in.”

“You’re, you’re serious?” Helsby felt his heart begin to thunder in his ears, by sheer chance he’d followed Mosley in and now he was going to die by complete and utter accident.

He and Mosley both sat hard, side by side against the wall, staring ahead in a numb and terrified silence.

“We won’t starve,” Helsby said in an optimistic tone.

“How’s that supposed to comfort me?” Mosley grumbled.

“We’ll suffocate first,” he answered glumly. “And that, I’ve heard, is like falling asleep… so it won’t hurt, much.”

“Only our lungs burning for however long we can last.”

“Aye…”

Mosley leaned back, his head bumping against the stone. “I knew I’d die down here.”

“Under the society?”

“Underground.”

“What made you so sure?”

“When I first fell into the earth all that time ago, it didn’t kill me like it should have. She’s been waiting, the ground, to take me back and finish the work she couldn’t before.”

“Then why keep digging?”

“I’d seen too much to ignore it anymore, I had to… I had to show the world. Somehow…”

Helsby chuckled, pulling off his glasses and polishing them with his sleeve, despite knowing in a few hours it wouldn’t matter. “I feel quite the same. I’ve seen such beauty in the ocean, so much potential, I knew I had to find a way to see it, all of it.”

“Your Nautilus.”

“Exactly. Oh Ethan she would have been beautiful, a ship like no other, capable of diving further, faster than anyone. I could be king of the seas, build a whole world beneath the waves… You’re looking at me like I’m mad.”

To his surprise, Mosley laughed, reaching up and pulling off his goggles to show small eyes that glittered in the lamp light. A scar ran through his left eyebrow, over his eye, and down his cheek where it disappeared beneath the scarf. “Quite the opposite, I dreamed much the same.”

He looked to the debris, “Perhaps we ought not to talk, save our breath in case… In case someone comes looking.”

“They probably heard the crash,” Helsby mumbled, quietly hopeful.

Mosley nodded, but said no more, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. Helsby watched him for a long time, his mouth drawn in a small, unhappy frown. He leaned back too, watching the light within the electric lamp flicker occasionally. That, at least, did not require oxygen, they may last a while longer.

At least it wasn’t drowning, he thought to himself. Drowning was so much more painful, for all at once you felt water rushing in and pain in your chest as you began to cough, desperate to suck in air but unable to. It filled your sinuses and your lungs until pain and blackness and then-

Nothing.

Presumably, that’s when you died.

Of course, Helsby didn’t know anyone who could tell him that. 

Maybe suffocating wouldn’t be so different.

Eons seemed to pass in that dim darkness, for they had no way to track the time in the unending and total silence of that place. The sound of one’s heartbeat and the ragged breathing of one’s neighbor were the only sounds in the great darkness of the deep earth, to the point that the mind would begin to fabricate sounds. Was that distant scraping the sound of a pick or a hammer? Could it be rescue?

The resounding silence echoed darkly that still, they were still alone.

Rescue was not coming.

Perhaps they’d be discovered in a week or two, when someone finally came looking, when all the rubble was pulled away and their rotting bodies revealed. What would the others think? Would they mourn? Would someone cry? Probably not.

Helsby sighed deeply, putting his head in his hands.

He looked up in surprise when Mosley put a hand against his back, offering a sad smile. Even if they were dying, they weren’t dying alone. That was comforting, at least a little, for no one deserved to be alone at the end of things.

Mosley scooted closer, pressing his shoulder against Helsby, a welcome feeling the bathynaut reciprocated, looking down at his shoes and the dirt between his feet.

Time continued to crawl by, and soon it became clear the air was changing. Each breath felt like it was harder to draw, Helsby’s lungs began to ache with a quiet sting, as if he’d been running a long way. He watched, in surprise and dismay, as Mosley even pulled down his mask, as if that’d help him get more oxygen from their depleted air.

Like the mark over his eye, another crossed his mouth, making his lips curl slightly.

Eventually Mosley signalled him with a wave and signed to him: “We’re running out of time.”

“I know,” he signed back, sighing quietly. “Part of me wishes I hadn’t…”

“Hadn’t what?” Mosley asked, frowning in confusion.

Helsby shrugged, signing slowly as if ashamed “Hadn’t wanted to get to know you, I guess… But that’s stupid. Someone would've come down here, if not me."

“You wanted to get to know me?” Mosley repeated, mirroring Helsby’s hand gestures. “Why? I’m hardly that special.”

“Are you kidding??” he signed widely, “You’re only the most mysterious person in the Society! I mean I know you’re brave and brilliant and resourceful, but you never talk to anyone unless we push you! So I, kind of hoped I could, maybe get on your good side and just… talk.” He trailed off, letting his hands drop into his lap and look away.

Mosley was quiet for a moment, before tapping Helsby’s attention back.

“I felt the same,” he began, slowly, as if being very specific with his signs. “Your work is astounding and the things you’ve spoken of seeing sound incredible. I could never sail like you do, a ship like the Nautilus and the deep ocean terrify me, but you… you’re so brave.”

Helsby felt his cheeks flush, and Mosley didn’t stop.

“It’s so hard for me to talk sometimes, to anyone really. I feel so strange, so out of place around everyone here. It’s so different then where I’m from, I always feel as if I’ll be turned away if I say too much or tell too much, but you… I’ve always wanted to talk with you, just pass the time in your company. You understand my science, and I always felt like you understood me.” He signed slowly at first, with growing speed and then stuffing his hands in his pockets, face red with embarrassment.

Helsby smiled a little, and gave a happy gesture. “Well, we both feel like outcasts among the world then. For different reasons of course but, I agree, it always seemed like you would get me.”

His head felt a little dizzy, he was running out of time, if he didn’t sign it now he’d never say it. “Even with your mask, I’ve always thought you were so charming, so clever and resourceful. Your contraptions are so simple yet so efficient and and…” He trailed off. 

“And I think you’re brilliant. Really, and truly brilliant.”

There was a moment of silence, both men’s breathing growing heavy in the thinning atmosphere. It seemed that, while before they could manage, in their signing the oxygen had quickly begun to drop below acceptable levels, making their heads swim.

Mosley moved forward, reaching out to cup Helsby’s face, making him startle from his dazed state. But he didn’t pull back when the miner came even closer, pressing the ghost of a kiss on his cheek. Then his eyes rolled and he collapsed.

Helsby’s heart thundered in his ears, he gasped softly in surprise, and then fell over as well, hardly able to hold himself upright as his head swam.

The delirium set in quickly.

Helsby swore he could hear the scraping of shovels and the shouting of voices.

The electric lantern flickered and went dark.

Thunk.  
Thunk.  
_CRUNCH!_

A large piece of the debris was pushed away, causing rocks to fall after it. Cool, cleaner air rushed in, making the unconscious bodies of Mosley and Helsby gasp as they were finally able to breathe once more. Voices shouted and someone crawled in to check on them, while somewhere else a massive fan was whirring.

As Helsby came to, Doctor Jekyll was checking him over, mumbling this and that to himself as he worked. Blinking against total exhaustion, Helsby looked around for where they’d taken Mosley.

And when he spotted his friend, laying on a bench nearby, breathing steadily, he smiled a little bit.

Before passing right back out again.


	2. Part 2 - Confession

It had been a week since the cave in. 

Mosley was planning to rebuild his elevator, in fact, he intended to remodel everything. In his plans, the tunnels now resembled more of a fort than a mine. The walls lined by strong wooden beams to keep them sturdy, the elevator attached to the ceiling, the many walls, and the earthen floor by taut steel cables, beams of iron and gears of copper carrying the lift smoothly from the lowest level to the upper bridge. He had to perfect it, an accident like that couldn’t happen again.

An accident like Helsby.

In frustration, Mosley slammed down his pencil and leaned back in the chair of his desk, listening to it creak softly beneath his weight.

Among his trinkets and shelves of his lab, his proper basement lab, no one could judge him for what he’d done, not even the little fossil skull on the shelf. Oh how he’d always wanted to take Helsby by the hand, drag him to  _ see _ things, to understand, and how he’d never been able to get past the part of him that insisted it was wrong. But God how he’d wanted it, and now he’d ruined any chance he had!

To be fair, he had thought they were dying, and he had been delirious. Yes, if anyone asked, he would tell them that he’d been delirious and not thinking straight. Certainly then he wouldn’t be cast out even further.

Then again, Helsby didn’t think he was an outcast, not really.

But it was vain hope to think he’d understood that kiss, when Mosley hadn’t said anything other than simple compliments due to the limitations of sign. He could have gone on and on about how much he admired Helsby’s bravery, his candid nature and his energy, but he didn’t. He just, didn’t.

What a waste.

Absentminded, Mosley scratched at the scar on his mouth, it itched slightly when he was nervous.

Helsby had been avoiding him, he could tell that much.

Then again, he’d also been avoiding Helsby, not yet ready to face the consequences of his split second decision in that cave before he blacked out. Again it would be so, so easy to blame it on delirium, but he couldn’t.

No that was the one thing he was absolutely certain of.

He’d decided, the moment that he discovered they were trapped, that he was going to kiss Ranjit Helsby before they died. 

Yet they hadn’t died. According to Archer, moments after the explosion, everyone heard the tremendous crash of Mosley’s tumbling elevator and ran for the basement. A hasty headcount suggested they’d been trapped under the rubble, and a frantic rescue began. Pennybrygg, Bryson, and Tweedy brought a large fan from one of Bryson’s flying machines to the mouth of the mine in order to blow down fresh air for the souls at work moving debris. Axes, picks, even explosives were used to move the rubble.

Twice they opened empty tunnels, and the third time they discovered where the two men had been trapped.

Mosley was relieved to hear that he hadn’t said anything ridiculous in his half conscious state, but everything else following the kiss was a blur until he woke in the infirmary. Helsby was already gone by then, and he didn’t even have a chance to discuss what had happened before his friend began to shun him completely. 

Clearly he’d done something wrong.

It was probably the kiss.

With a sigh, Mosley cupped his face and rested his elbows on the desk, unable to get his mind off of Helsby and what he’d done, what a fool he’d been. His mind ran in circles, replaying the same thoughts, the same memories, the same worries over and over and over again.

Until someone politely knocked on his door.

Quickly, he snapped his goggles down and pulled up his mask. “Come in.”

The door opened and Mosley was momentarily blinded, even with his shaded goggles. Mr. Archer stood there and cleared his throat. “Uh, Sorry to bother, but I was told to pass on a message for you? From Mr. Helsby.”

Mosley stood a bit too quickly, knocking his chair back. “What? Really? What is it?”

Archer fought a smirk, “He wants you to meet him in the passage behind the clock on the second story. It’s pretty important.”

“No time to waste then.” Mosley hurried past, carefully stepping around Archer, and ran off to the passage. 

Mr. Archer just grinned to himself, for the plan he’d concocted with Miss Rachel and Miss Lavender was working flawlessly. The girls had already told Helsby that Mosley had a message for him and was waiting behind the clock. With luck, the two would arrive one after the other, and then the rest of the plan could be put into action.

Mr. Mosley mounted the stairs and, casually, opened the grand clock on the second story of the Society. He tugged twice on one of the chains within and there was a grinding sound, unlocking the wall on a spinning joint and allowing him to duck through as an identical wall flipped out to face the world.

To his delight, or maybe dread, he found Helsby waiting inside the brick passageway. For a moment the two just faced each other in the dim light that came through the clockface.

“This was a bad idea,” Helsby said suddenly, turning to push past Mosley and through the wall. To his horror, however, it seemed as if someone had locked the swinging door, making them both trapped. He pounded, “Hey! Whoever’s out there, knock it off and unlock the clock NOW!”

He heard giggling and running footsteps, meaning the only way out, was down the opposite way.

“Ranjit… didn’t you want to speak to me?” Mosley asked quietly, confused and a little hurt.

Helsby turned, “What? I-I was told you wanted to speak to me?”

A beat passed and both of them sighed, realizing they’d been tricked.

“Well, I guess you didn’t want to talk to me,” Mosley said, folding his arms.

“That was not my plan for today, no,” Helsby admitted, rubbing his eyes.

A beat passed. “Listen, Ranjit, I understand if you never want to speak to me again after what I did in the cave but, I thought you should know... everything I said was true. I meant every word.”

Helsby adjusted his glasses and stared at him for a moment. “And what about the kiss?”

“What about it?”

“Was it real too?”

Mosley swallowed hard, “Yes. It was. I thought we were dying so I acted without thinking. Does that make you angry?”

“The opposite, actually. It’s a relief, because it means I didn’t totally imagine it.” He stepped closer, offering Mosley a hand, “Everyone thinks we’re avoiding each other because something happened in the cave to make me hate you. But, I think, it did the opposite. You’re an extraordinary person, Ethan Mosley, and I think you should know that I’m quite fond of the time we spend together. I even think I’m quite fond of you.”

He saw Mosley blush, even stammering for a response, only to go quiet and simply take Helsby’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Words can be so hard sometimes,” he mumbled into his scarf.

“Yeah, they can be.” Helsby moved a little closer, “You know, they say actions speak louder than words.”

“Mr. Helsby, what are you implying?”

“Well if you let me take off your scarf, maybe I could show you.” Mosley visibly stiffened, reaching up to touch the cloth, and Helsby instantly backed off. “Or maybe not. You know, not everything has to be done my way, sorry for being pushy.”

He saw Mosley smile, “Thank you. We should get out of here.”

“Hey! The other door pops out in the kitchen, we could get a snack!” he said optimistically, giving that quirky, infectious smile of his. Mosley couldn’t help but grin back, even behind his dark goggles and mask, as they began to walk along the secret passage.

Okay, so maybe that hadn’t gone perfectly and Mosley’s nerve had totally failed him, but it was good to know that Helsby was on his side.  _ Really _ on his side. Maybe working together hey could create some fantastic things, but right now, he was just glad to be holding Helsby’s hand as they walked along in the dim lighting of the Society’s secret corridors.

And, just as they were about to push open the door that snuck into the kitchen’s pantry, Mosley finally convinced himself to yank down his scarf and peck Helsby on the cheek.

It was worth it just to see him blush such a deep red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second half is shorter than the first half, but to be fair, it's mostly to tie a nice bow on the whole piece without intruding on the whole  
> uh  
> suffocating thing  
> anyway Mosley is one of my favs and I need to write more about him, but I hope this is good for now!  
> mad props to my friend Morgan-Molliniere and Wintersnow for beta-ing

**Author's Note:**

> I binge wrote this in like three hours after finishing 20,000 leagues under the sea and am throwing it on here for good measure


End file.
